It is fair to say that we enjoyed our time in Sicily and saw many amazing things as it is an arceiological paradise that we will tell you about, but in our opinion, Sicily needs a coat of love and care, a bit of paint and have the garbage picked up sooner. Now, before you simply move on to another blog or just take a peak at our pictures, we implore you to read the entire blog because overall, we experienced a roller coaster relationship with this province of Italy and we’d like to tell you why. Sicily is a hard one for us to describe as we didn’t fall in love with it the way we have other parts of Italy. Sicily has a tough veneer and is a bit dingy in places. But not ... read more

We have long looked forward to the Athens portion of this trip as we would have the opportunity meet up with Dave’s sister Susan and her husband Jeff. We knew this would be a special travel treat. Susan and Jeff have worked hard over the years, plus they raised and home schooled six children. They intended to go to Greece on their anniversary many years ago. Life events kept postponing the trip—but it is happening now! We are thrilled to be able to join them for a few days. We have not been to Greece since 2003—it was one of our early trips out of the country. We arrived in Athens a few days before them and eagerly awaited their arrival. After getting settled in our hotel located in the old and historic Plaka District, we ... read more

And so another adventure begins….this one will take us many places in the Mediterranean, but first, to Paris for two nights. You’ve got to start somewhere, so why not Paris? Two nights in Paris is never enough but two weeks or two months may not be either. France required a “health pass” when we planned this travel experience, so the thinking was it would be simple enough to get this done in Paris and why not stay for another night before heading on? Fortunately, before we arrived things improved, and the requirement was dropped. So, instead of running around doing paperwork we were able to just run around. We were pleasantly surprised by 70 degree sunny days as the weathermen had promised us cloudy, rainy and low 60 degree temperatures. We checked out some familiar sites ... read more

After all those years of travel, there we were......on a highway to Ha'il. It was inevitable of course. Not because we lived a lifestyle that would lead us to the fiery depths of Hades, but rather because we were continuing our journey in Saudi and the path was straight to a city in the middle of nowhere really. In a country as large as Saudi Arabia the drives are long from town to town. This part of the country is rather desolate, and it was a bit cloudy to boot. Lacking the sunshine, the desert didn’t have the beauty it had a few days ago. As a matter of fact, it looked a tad ugly. We’d been told we would have a picnic in a unique place because there weren’t any restaurants in this isolated section ... read more

Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East, situated between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Ninety five percent of this country is considered a desert or semi-desert. We began to feel the enormity of the country as we left Jeddah via the Haramain high speed train heading to the Holy City of Medina. Once we were out of the Jeddah city limits there were miles and miles of barren land. Saudi Arabia has no rivers of lakes. All water is from under the ground or by desalination. Shades of tan, brown, gray and rust dotted the landscape. When one first enters the desert, it looks rather bland and blends into all one color. The longer time you spend in this muted landscape it slowly becomes alive. In the landscape you begin to ... read more